Monday, 17 March 2008
Great start to the 2008 season
Two new teams joined Jaguar Logic and Puma Logic on Saturday for the Warsash Spring Series, the first racing campaign of the season. After meeting in the Waterfront for breakfast and an introduction the teams departed for a training day in the Solent in the miserable rain!
The forecast on Sunday was excellent and made the promise of no rain but plenty of wind. The wind strength exceeded everyone’s expectations and reached nearly thirty knots toward the end of the race, providing some exciting and testing conditions for our new teams!
Both Jaguar and Puma had good starts and found themselves in the front third of the fleet at the first mark. After good kite hoists both teams, with Jaguar a couple of boat lengths ahead of Puma, controlled the downwind leg extremely well. Jaguar took advantage of Puma’s problems with their kite pole after the gybe and extended their lead. They were in the top three at the 2nd mark with Puma in 7th place.
Jaguar continued to sail an excellent race and were soon in 2nd place. Puma sailed the next kite leg conservatively (without a kite) loosing vital ground. This approach did pay off and the team overcame the problems very well to sail a fast 2nd half of the race gaining much ground and several places.
Steady Barker crossed the line in 1st place closely followed by Jaguar. Puma pushed hard hitting speeds of 11 knots on the final kite run to finish a good 4th place on the water.
Both teams celebrated in the Waterfront after a superb day of racing. The news soon came in that Steady Barker had been disqualified putting Jaguar in 1st place and Puma in 3rd place. An excellent achievement for both teams in challenging conditions which resulted in many wipe outs, retirements and even an air rescue (for other boats)! What a great start to the season.
Two new teams joined Jaguar Logic and Puma Logic on Saturday for the Warsash Spring Series, the first racing campaign of the season. After meeting in the Waterfront for breakfast and an introduction the teams departed for a training day in the Solent in the miserable rain!
The forecast on Sunday was excellent and made the promise of no rain but plenty of wind. The wind strength exceeded everyone’s expectations and reached nearly thirty knots toward the end of the race, providing some exciting and testing conditions for our new teams!
Both Jaguar and Puma had good starts and found themselves in the front third of the fleet at the first mark. After good kite hoists both teams, with Jaguar a couple of boat lengths ahead of Puma, controlled the downwind leg extremely well. Jaguar took advantage of Puma’s problems with their kite pole after the gybe and extended their lead. They were in the top three at the 2nd mark with Puma in 7th place.
Jaguar continued to sail an excellent race and were soon in 2nd place. Puma sailed the next kite leg conservatively (without a kite) loosing vital ground. This approach did pay off and the team overcame the problems very well to sail a fast 2nd half of the race gaining much ground and several places.
Steady Barker crossed the line in 1st place closely followed by Jaguar. Puma pushed hard hitting speeds of 11 knots on the final kite run to finish a good 4th place on the water.
Both teams celebrated in the Waterfront after a superb day of racing. The news soon came in that Steady Barker had been disqualified putting Jaguar in 1st place and Puma in 3rd place. An excellent achievement for both teams in challenging conditions which resulted in many wipe outs, retirements and even an air rescue (for other boats)! What a great start to the season.
posted by Sailing Logic at 2:55 PM
